The Opelousas courier., 1887-08-20
NARROW NUBIA.
Great strip or Country
which Borders the Nile.
sights Among the Most Religious Of all
Mohammedan,.

Egypt, writes o correspondent of the
rleycland Leader, has been dubbed a
ind about five miles wide, but Nubia is
aparer five rods. Still, if one calls the
desert l:nl, both countries have an
abundant ,upply. 1t is the Nile that
makes whatever cultivable soil there is,
ana in fatter Egypt exclusive of course,
II lie D,lta,) there is often a green ex-
nanse quite wide enough to give the
landscape a smiling aspect. As for Nu-
BID. the river must crowd itself through
/ more hilly region whose black, forbie-
dIng rocks spread themselves like rusty
mourning all over the country, and we'll
she may be in mourning, with but the
narrow, ribbon like strip of mud which
The river has deposited against the hil!-
aides for the poor inhabitant to use.
Along the Nubian Nile, therefore,
villages are less numerous than in
Egypt, it often being a days jour
new from one to another. They mu,t'
to-. stand away from the river; huddled
between the hills are they, or back in
The desert, lest an inch of the precious
mud be lost. The native, thus rudcly
thrustforth from his but hardly subsisting
mother country, has to seek employment
ii the richer low lands, and at Cairo one
Is continually encountering him looking
desperately uncomfortable in a semi
European dress. He is greatly in de-
mand there for service as porter, water
carrier, or house servant, for which,
though he may not have Egyptian acute
ness, his undeniable patience and
honesty well fit him. This narrow,
scanty land of Nubia, really reclaimed
from Nile washings, might be quite de-
sEroyed by its immense environment of
shifting sand, on the one side from the
Arabian, on the other from the Libyan
desert, four times as large, were it
not for two constantly working in
stitutions. The first, the shaduf, is an
arrangement somewhat like a well, hav-
ing basket-buckets which are filled by a
fellah, then raised by means of a pole
and weight, the water falling into a
trough, which is quickly scooped out by
the b ickets of d second worker standing
aboyc, who sends the water into a yet
higher trough, and so into canals which
iFrigate the land. The second i~nstitu
tioais the sakiyeb, q wheel, to whose
revolving spokes are fastened carthen
jars which ell in the river and then are
raised until they ladle their contents into
an artificial reservoir. Oxen turn the
transverse wheel crank, and, as no oil is
ever used, the pitiless creak of wood
agaiist wood goes on unremittingly
nisht and day.
Bat Of all sights here, the fellah him
elE i the most interesting. This ''cut-
se Or plower, in Egypt looks exactly
ths same as the bas-relicfs show the fell
lh oil ancient times to have been, a
broad, shouldcred, narrow-hipped indi-
xldual, with arather taking bronze com-
plezion. Here in Nuoia, though, these
hlaekamoors, with their wooily hair,
thick, ~protruding lips, and fat noses,
AoWe-cr good their figures, are the visi-
bic signs that we have reached a lower
grade of intelligence. Their language is
one derived from purely African sources;
but the scaut garments of the t'vilc
Ncs Of Cush" speaks for the cli-
mate rather than the lower social scale.
The Nubian, whose country numbers
not q single Christian, is of all Moham-
medans, the most religious. If anything
surprises him he quickly says: "What
wonders God does" or, "Allah is
mighty The very water carrier going
along the street cries, 20 may God re-
ward me, /" and the night wassanman: ~
extol the perfection of Living King, who
Sleepeth not nor dioth." But above all
deVon&sis be, as five times q day he
spreads his prayer rug and washes face,
feet, and hands at the voice of Belals
successors from the minaret. A wall
seems that voice, rising and falling, and
dying away like the wind, breathing,
Great is Allah.' There is no other God
huthe, and Mohammed is his prophet.
Come unto prayer, come unto salvation.
There is no God but the Lord, while at
break Of day may bs heard the addi-
slpnal admonition, prayer is better
Shan sleep"
Astrango custom is that the houses
(which are built out cf sun-dried clay
bricks. III Of no bricks at all but SIMPLY
the sun dried clay,) falling TO pieces,
ae rarely repaired, but left to resolve
ain into their original Nile mud, and
new ones constructed. These, however,
lpok Old enough in their most youthful
Fpath, and are ornamcnted, the best O
sl1eu, with d row Of water jugs as :
%gfFices and covered with thatch and
md They look ugly and hot enough,
fae to-day, as they arc u%nfragrant, fol
1aerery ground is aiding the sun in
swing forth heat. Only the shade ]:
sHEsable; The sand is like walking OF